Pittsburgh Pirates at Houston Astros, Wild Card Implications Abound

Whoever it was that pointed out that Randy Wolf, and not Roy Oswalt was pitching tonight- thank you. I couldn’t remove the Roy O widget, so I just decided to create a new game thread. Root, root, root for the Red Legs too.

This is an excerpt from a Hardball Times article, giving each of the 30 MLB teams a song to describe their season:

Houston Astros: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys. Wouldn’t it be something if their late-season charge could amount to something for them? On July 11, the Nationals beat them by 10 runs, causing the last place Astros to fall to 42-51 on the year. Since then they’ve kept rising up. Despite playing brilliantly lately, they are still stuck in fourth place, with apparently little chance to play in October. Their streak will likely mean nothing . . . but wouldn’t it be nice for them if either the Brewers and/or Cubs collapsed allowing Houston a shocking wild card?

that was a tough play

Creepy. Looks like he has no soul.

I check the match ups for relevant games tonight and we have pretty favorable match-ups for most games.

The Marlins are throwing a good rookie up against the Phils tonight with a 3.32 ERA while the Phils have Kyle Kendrick who has an ERA above 5 on the season and a 9+ ERA in his last 5 starts. As you can see from the score Joe just posted (on the old thread.. the score is 7-1 Marlins) , that ERA has probably gone up quite a bit. Advantage: Marlins (I thought this before the game started, but it’s pretty clear now.)

For the Reds and Brewers game, the Reds are using a rookie pitcher themselves. He’s pitched only 10 innings this year and has an ERA of 2.70 with 10 strike outs. This was against the Pirates and Giants however. A better team might be able to do some damage against him. As for the Brewers, they are going with Jeff Suppan. He’s been OK, but he had a good August. Fortunately for us, he can be lit up (we did with 8 runs on July 27th) and his last start wasn’t that great, giving up 4 earned runs in 5.1 innings against a weak team: the Padres. Advantage: Brewers (slightly – let’s hope the rookie surprises us.)

The Cubs and Cards are going with Ryan Dempster and Kyle Lohse. I’m sure you all know these two guys so I won’t go into details, but they have both been good recently. I’m going to give the advantage (another slight one) to the Cubs on this one.

And finally, the game we are all watching. Wolf vs. Olhendorf at Minute Maid Park. Wolf has been pretty good since joining the team, so we should expect another good performance out him tonight, especially against the Pirates. Olhendorf was acquired in the Nady trade from the Yankees and he pitched two innings against us this year, giving up one run. He is making his second Major League start tonight and sports a 6.26 ERA, so we should have an opportunity to run away with the game early. Advantage: Astros (by a large margin)

So we are looking at something like:
Marlins over Phillies
Brewers over Reds
Cubs over Cards
Astros over Pirates.

5 games back from the Wild Card and 3rd in the Central by the end of the night with our Wild Card elimination number dropping to 13.

That’s my prediction.

Bert is at bat.

I’m confident Wolf can keep them in check though.

Over the Phillies.
We won’t be losing any ground to them tonight.

3 consecutive hits and now a 2-0 lead in the first.

Erstad singles, setting up the double play for Tejada.

Tejada also singles.
Now, hit a bomb, Berkman.

3-2 Astros on a Puma Homer

In the 1st against the Brewers.
Brewers managed to score 1, though.
1-0 Brew Crew

Lets pad this lead now.

We saw him come out of it last night. He confirmed he is back with that much needed 3 run homerun in the first to erase that ugly Pirates lead.

And Tejada hit !

Mets Phillies and Cardinals trail in their respective games. Brewers lead the Reds but it’s not the ninth inning yet.

Feeling good

Anyone know why?

to argue this weird play.

i’m w/ jd, how did the other umps overrrule the home plate ump?

say “J.R. who?” next spring

but just in case. The Cubs-Cards game is on WGN if your cable/sat has that channel.

middle 3rd. Woot.

but hit off end of the bat and fooled the left fielder. dropped in for a hit. 2 on, 0 out.

Then Tejada lucky single to left
Berkman RBI double

 Rollin’

seems to receive the ball kinda funny. not sure if it’s this pitcher’s stuff or what

one on, one out, top 4th

for Hunter Pence

hunter bounced into F/c to third.

bases still loaded, 1 out

Nevermind. Pence batted :p

i shouldn’t, but i will. calling it.

But slopping baserunning may have cost them more runs.

but gets caught stealing for the 2nd out.
I’m sure “caught stealing” was just the scorer being generous. He probably just got tired of standing up next to first and lay down for a nap. :p

Meanwhile Phillie really trying to make a comeback. 10-8 against the Marlins in the 6th.

Trail Marlins 10-8 after six innings

with I guess a 3 run HR (they had two on and I think the score was still 3-0; next time I looked it was tied) don’t know who hit it.

something about 3 guys named abu

first pitch is chin music up and in

Have put another 2 on the board, top 6. 3-1 Cincinnati

right?

Instant Replay Instant Replay Instant Replay Instant Replay

in New York City. Get a rope!

i think it was a rushed decision, driven by a couple bad calls in NY.

baseball has always had the human element and i’m happy to settle for that. it’ll only get expanded to more and more stuff over time.

It seems like we are just copying the Cubs’ fans. And who wants to copy them?

After a poor start giving up 2 runs on 2 hits in the first inning, he pitched a one-hitter the rest of his stay (the one hit being a homerun). He deserves a win tonight, and a pat on the back.

first major league AB – home run

second AB – reach via catcher’s interference.

man on first, 0 out. soriano up

still tied 3-3

love it

Tie it up at 4…

I’m scoreboard watching

The first non-close game in a long time.

Votto hits a ground rule double to start off the ninth.

3-4 with 4 RBI.. a homer .. cool beans

We’re 4 back!

4 games out!! Told you not to give up!!

Destiny calls

When do we start giving Drayton McLane his due? He kept the faith when almost everyone else faltered.

we had the wild card lead my September 10th. Believe it or not, this would be the best of our runs. It feels different though? Maybe it’s because we’re doing it with a bunch of new guys.

Erstad, Wiggy, Wolf, Blum, Newhan, Valverde.

with Chicago and San Fran.

here.

by meltdown fishing on the BrewCrew site. pretty interesting logjam at the top scenarios:

http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/028894.php